[Karen]

A friend and I hiked Murphy’s Trail today. So, just where in the heck is Murphy’s trail you may well wonder. Surely you’ve been there. Just about every hiker I know has been there at one time or another. Murphy’s Trail is where you find yourself occasionally -- it’s where you go when you don’t have enough sense enough to turn around or when things just go wrong, one at a time. We are more apt to visit Murphy’s Trail on a rainy day in November than a clear day in August. Murphy’s Trail is where you find yourself when you begin to get that dim inkling that something is wrong, things are not where they should be, things are not as you remembered, you’ve taken a wrong turn …. You get the picture. We hiked Murphy’s trail today in our attempt to hike up the Green Mountain road near North Bend. We did everything right. We had the current maps, even the old maps. We had the guidebook in which Harvey Manning gave us the elevations. My friend, Sue, who is an expert navigator … even that was not enough to save us from near disaster on Murphy’s Trail. Raining hard at the school bus turnaround and parking area (Mount Teneriffe parking area) (elevation 950 feet per the map). Put the guidebook and maps in the pack. Put on hats, gloves, rain-gear. I had only one gaiter. Big mistake. Snowshoes left in car. Another mistake. Hiked from the turnaround to the gated CCC road (350 feet elevation gain). I’d been there before (being there is no guarantee that you won’t find yourself on Murphy’s trail). It was raining hard. Camera in pack. Off we go up the sloppy road with the rain coming down and wet snow on the road. Not nearly enough for snowshoes. Kept going. Came to several roads, none of them with road numbers or any indication of where they go. Kept going. Stopped to take a picture of tracks in the snow. Raining harder. Camera back in pack. Onward. Stopped to check the book (in the rain) and with gloves on turned to the correct page. Hmmmm. It said to turn left when you got to 2,500 feet. We were well below 2,500 feet. Kept going. Snow getting deeper. Sue wished she had snowshoes. I was still OK. Came to another road. It didn’t look right. We kept going. The road we were on was staying level and not climbing much at all. I looked for the valley views recalled from past years hiking the road (alders grow fast). Clouds have a tendency to obscure the views. Came to a road that looked like the right road but elevation was still too low. Kept going. Sue getting wet and tired. Snow about 6-7 inches deep. Karen getting wet and tired. Came to a stream and hunger forced us to stop. Sue tried to eat her sandwich but rained so hard it turned to mush. We kept going. Saw a bunch of rocky cliffs off on the left that looked strangely familiar. “Gee”, I said to Sue, “this sure looks like the high point of the CCC Road.” We kept going but it rained harder. We were starting to get wet and cold just about everywhere so called it quits when the road began going DOWN and turned around. On our way back we looked once again at the road we had passed. The book had mentioned an old metal gate hidden in the brush. At first glance it looks like alders. A second look confirmed it was a gate. But it was way too low to be the right road. We were so wet by then we decided to beat it back to the car. By the time we finally got back to the car we were both so cold we could hardly change out of our clothes and my hands were so cold I couldn’t even take out my contact lenses. Oh yeah, I had taken a grand total of TWO photos. “Let’s figure this out and get something hot to drink” Sue suggested. I couldn’t have agreed more. We took the maps, the guidebook, and ourselves into the nearest McDonalds and ordered two cups of scaldingly hot coffee. We opened the book wanting to blame it all on Harvey but lo and behold …. The write-up said the road took off at about 1,240 feet but we had BOTH read the book and it said 2,500 feet. Flummoxed. Totally baffled. We flipped through the pages. Then I saw that we had been looking at the wrong page on the CCC road. In the rain, on the road, we had skipped a page and were reading the elevation for ANOTHER hike that started at 2,500 feet!!!! It’s hard to turn pages in a guidebook when your gloves are wet. Well, we had a good laugh over it. We had wanted to go to Green Mountain but instead we took Murphy’s Trail. Of course by the time we got to Seattle the sun was bright and the roads were dry. We had a good time anyway. Stats: 8 miles round-trip, about 700-750 feet of elevation gain. Karen

[Slugman]

It sounds like you had one of my type of mis-adventure. Murphy's trail is even scarier when alone. You were wise to turn back. A broken leg under those conditions could be life-threatening. I am glad you managed to enjoy yourselves regardless. PS- you are unlikely to win a Pullitzer for that photo!

[Karen]

Hey Slugman, I was going to enter that photo in a contest -- maybe I'll reconsider. Seriously, if you think that's a poor photo you should see the one I DIDN'T post. Yikes, Karen

[jimmymac]

Yep. I've been on several versions of Murphy's trail. And I've found a way to make a jinxed trip just a little bit worse. When things start going really poorly, I sometimes make the mistake of taking it personally and becoming stubborn. Not good. I just end up digging myself a deeper hole. I'll bet you were glad that you pulled the plug on that trip when you did. 'Sounds like a few more complications (dead car battery, etc) and you might have been hurtin'. Better travels next time.

[Alan Bauer]

Karen--after the misadventures you and I had last winter on the eastern end of the CCC Road, you should have KNOWN better than to venture even NEAR there every again!! Did you get as wet with sloppy snow down the backside as we had to endiure for what seemed like 44 miles? Now I believe you will never read the phrase "CCC" ever again and not duck!

[Newt]

When it rains, it pours. I remember reading years ago Murphy was working on a new trail system. Some how he had developed a trail system the could randomly relocate it's self. He was actually the first to be able to clone and morph as his new trail had the ability to be in more than one location at any given time and adapt to any given environment and terrain. I believe he applied for a patent but was turned down. Looks like you found one of his the remaining trails. Murphy was quite the guy. Had his fingers in most everything at one time or another. Glad you made it back. Some don't. NN

[Karen]

Murphy does other interesting "tricks" too such as adding roads where none are shown on maps and just to make it even MORE delightful, such roads are always without road numbers. Seriously, Sue and I felt like going back to the CCC Road with spray paint and painting road numbers and/or signage on the roads. Absolutely NOTHING is signed on the western end of the CCC Road. Of course, we won't actually DO that but it feels good to visualize doing it. Alan, I thought of you several times yesterday as we slogged along. Though we never got to that nasty dripping brush you and I encountered, we managed to get as wet, if not wetter, than you and I on our CCC Road adventure. Some of us are slow to learn. Karen PS A return trip to Green Mountain will be coming soon to your neighborhood .... seriously, I do plan to go back but NOT when it's raining or sleeting. Sue came up with a great phrase for the kind of rain we encountered: "splatty rain".